Draw Me Close: Podcast - A Ministry of Whitestone Christian Fellowship, with Pastor Bob Lawrenz DRAW ME CLOSE - Whitestone CF

This week we are picking up our study of 1 John 5 from verse 10. In this final section of 1 John (5:13-21), John the things every believer can and should know.  Seven times the word know appears. Christianity is not an “I hope so” or “I think so” faith. It is an “I know so” faith because what has been revealed in the Bible was given to us by God, a God who speaks and a God who speaks only truth. As he brings his letter to close, what is it, in particular, that John wants, that God wants, every child of His to know?


We can know we have eternal life
We can know that God answers prayer
We can know victory over sin
We can know we belong to God
We can know what is true

The Apostle John began making his point in the beginning of this Epistle, and now he drives the point home for us in this second half of 1 John 5. From “whosoever” meaning me, to an “assurance” of salvation if we believe. 

1 John chapter 5 emphasizes the believer's ability to "overcome" the world (1 John 5:1–5) through the power of Christ. Overcomers are those who believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior. The term witness is the theme of verses (6-12).  The passage concerns the witness or testimony of God and the Spirit to the world regarding the great truth of the deity of Jesus Christ.  He gives two kinds of testimony: external (6-9) which we will cover today, and internal (vs. 10-12) which we will cover next week.

Genesis 12:1–3 introduces the beginning of God's relationship with Abram; this is the earliest history of the nation of Israel. Without any recorded preamble, God shows up in Abram's life with a command to go away from where he is to an unnamed place. In the going, God promises to make Abram a great nation, to bless him, to give him a great name, and to make him a blessing.Now God continues these promises: God will bless those who bless Abram. God will curse those who dishonor Abram. In Abram, God will bless all the families, or "peoples," of the earth.


Knowing what we know now about the history of God's relationship with Israel, it's clear that God does indeed keep these promises (Deuteronomy 34:1–4; Joshua 1:1–9). Of course, Abram currently has no way of knowing that for sure. Instead, he will have to trust God to keep his vows (Hebrews 6:13–18).

This week we come to the fourth chapter of John's first epistle.  Pastor Bob shares some insight from the writing of the epistles to first couple of chapters in the book of Revelation.  It was written about 6 years after John's epistles. When looking at John's epistles, we can easily see why there was a need for Revelation 2 and 3. The Holy Spirit had been showing John exactly what needed to take place, what needed to be done, and what needed to be written in order to restore true faith to the Christian churches, the churches of Jesus Christ.

John turns from the importance of love to the importance of belief in god's truth in the previous chapters. 


In this epistle here in chapter 4, John commands believers to test the spirits. This is necessary if you’re going to discern between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. You have to know whatever information is coming to you by its source.  Error is not benign; it is malignant. It is not human; it is demonic. Spiritual truth comes from the Holy Spirit and it is life-giving, life-sustaining, life-producing, God-glorifying, or it comes from demons. It is either the doctrine of God or the doctrine of demons. It is either that word which is sent and energized by the Holy Spirit, or it is that which comes from seducing spirits. And teachers are either the true teachers of God or hypocritical liars, espousing the doctrine of demons fostered by seducing spirits. We must know the difference because of the malignancy of error, because of the power of truth. The truth gives life; error kills.

In the second division of this chapter (4:7-21), John is true to his pattern of developing the same subjects, each time broadening, expanding, and expounding their significance.  John returns once again to the moral test of love.  These verses constitute one long unit describing what perfect love is and that it is available to us.  
Since God's nature is love, whoever is born of God loves. John makes the point that in the new birth, this aspect of the divine nature becomes part of who you are. The new birth is the imparting to you of divine life, and an indispensable part of that life is love. God’s nature is love, and in the new birth that nature becomes part of who you are. Love is, and love starts with God. Any love that we have is because we are connected with God by the new birth.  We are born again into His family, as sons and daughters, and we have been given the Holy Spirit's abiding presence in our lives.

In the Book of Revelation, John proved to us that he was an obedient servant in chapter 1:19. When told to “Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter;” that is what he did, and with precision. He had seen all of Jesus’ Earthly ministry, and the first century of church history. He recorded all of it: the good, the bad, and the ugly. From the blessings of Christian brotherhood to the errors of doctrine that gained a foothold in one church or another, John made sure he wrote of it.


But because of what John had seen during that first century, his First Epistle introduces the need for Revelation 2 & 3. False doctrines, false teachers, and false prophets had quietly snuck into Jesus’ Church, lest any forget Whose Churches these are!Hence the subject matter of the Epistle we are going through now.